Monday, September 5, 2011

Me duele el codo....

or gee whiz owning a house is expensive!

What up homies? We've been in the house for a week!! I can walk on my foot! We have moved some furniture in and when I say we that is the royal We since the mister, mini-me and the boy have had to do all the lifting.

I know I mentioned it in passing last post but Wednesday night I fell down the stairs when I missed a step heading to the basement. First, it looked like this:
 I had the mister take me to the hospital to get some x-rays. Falling down that many steps with my weight on it really scared me into thinking I could have seriously injured myself. I took Thursday and Friday off work since I really couldn't walk without crutches. Took it easy on Saturday with some short walks, then started hobbling about on Sunday when it looked like this after a day of organizing about the house:

Until finally, I sat on the deck to watch the Mister and the neighbor put up a new fence:

Speaking of the fence:
Fence before :-(

Fence after!! :-)
I mentioned that we moved in some furniture and I took pictures!

Living room (I'll be adding some window stuff this week) minus the coffee table:
Insert matching coffee table in front of green couch

dining room with rug

Mini-me's room

Obviously missing furniture and bedding
.

The boy's room and Bailey...
I'll add pictures of the basement once we get stuffed moved into the bedrooms. I have some horrifying before pictures and hope to get some not so scary after shots.

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Taking a flying leap...

or how to sprain your ankle two days after moving in.

Hello from the land of homeownership! We've been in the house since Sunday and have not really done much of anything that would resemble "decorating".

Some of the walls have been painted and most of the colors can be found at Walmart although we did our shopping at the Home Depot:

The kitchen:
which is actually cleaned up now thanks to the mister, is painted the lovely shade of Natural Wicker. The layout of the kitchen makes it seem like it was designed to have a separate freezer and fridge.

In the dining room, with it's beyoutiful chandelier:


We chose Natural Linen which is slightly darker than the Wicker. The floors are still causing me anxiety as I want to clean them thoroughly but am hampered by how hard it is on your body!

The Mister and I went back and forth on the color for the living for a few days before giving up and going for the original color we had chosen  of Soft Sage:


The contractors painted the two bedrooms upstairs as part of the bid. Mini-me chose Martha Stewart Cornflower Blue:



Our bedroom is another Glidden Paint Moonlight Grey:


I don't have a picture of the Boy's room but painted the lower half of each wall Martha Stewart Vermilion which looked like blood smeared on the walls when we tested it. Now that it is done it looks nice but I had some doubts!

This upcoming weekend holds fence repair for the Mister and me hobbling around on crutches after missing 2 or 3 basement steps last night and spraining my ankle. I have an air cast on it and I hope it will heal up extremely fast! That's my hope anyway. Scooting up and down the stairs to the basement is crappy. I'll post more pictures as we actually get to work on the house. We spent what felt like 100 hours cleaning our old blue house.
Thanks 1343 for taking care of us for 3 years!! I hope you find another family to care for soon!





Friday, August 19, 2011

Get off MY lawn!!

Hiya Friends!

We closed on the house Tuesday! Hooray!!! I'm a grown-up!

Rob and I went over and hung out in our house just to hang out. Then, in the backyard, we met the crazy, barking neighbor dog. It jumped up on the fence, broke a slat and sent Rob and I scurrying away. So task #1 for the house? Replace the fence!

The contractors will be starting work on Monday then once their work is done, we can move in for real! The contractor said it was ok to paint and move stuff in as long as it doesn't in their way to get there work done. We took one load over yesterday and put it in a corner of the basement. I imagine we will take more over tonight, look at some more paint, pull up carpets and look at our wood floors again. We are thinking of getting them refinished but that =$$$$. Did you notice the # of $ signs in that sentence? That is the estimate I have right now. Yikes!

I'll post some pictures once we get some stuff done to the house. Some questions we have are:

  1. what is the best way to clean the deck? 
  2. what is a good color to paint the kitchen?

We are open to suggestions. :-) 








Monday, July 11, 2011

But does the carpet match the drapes?

RC and have an ongoing disagreement regarding the carpet in the new house. I know you were expecting some racy blog post on more personal topics but alas, it's still house related. Womp...womp...

The house has these great original wood floors, carpet in the first floor bedrooms and the strangely enough, the upstairs bathroom. I personally like the carpet. RC hates the carpet. It supposedly makes him sick to his stomach just looking at it.

O
This green one is my favorite.


Perhaps I am too retro in my thinking....

NOT as enamored by this bad boy.  

The rusty brown leaves something to be desired....

 I truly love the green. The brown not so much. Aren't plain wood floors cold? Don't you need rugs and shiz to keep your furniture from scratching the finish?

We also looked at appliances that we need to buy. Here is my crazy idea: I want....drumroll please....an upright refrigerator and full upright freezer. Yes. Two separate units. I figure why not just buy them separately since we would only end buying a freezer anyway if we went with a traditional fridge. This just cuts out the extra appliance. What do you think? Genius or corn-fed folly?

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Push back....

We pushed our closing date  to August 16, which just happens to be the first day of school for the damn kids. It still gives us two weeks to paint, rip out carpet, get contractors in and redo the floors before we have to be out of the current place.

The seller actually asked if we would be willing to push it back and offered a king size bed to sweeten the deal. He also wants to sell his dining room table which seems like good deal; we're just waiting to see how much he wants for it.

I meet with the contractors on Friday so they can do some measurements and prepare some bids for the work we are getting done. Exciting!!

RC and I adopted a new beagle named Bailey last night from a guy in Omaha.


 
Meet Beagle Bailey
She kinda fits right in doesn't she? Nana asked how Lucy Goose was reacting.
She seemed...unconcerned...relaxed...exhausted
According the Lee, the guy we adopted her from, she was some older lady's dog who was moving and he only had her about 5 months. She's bigger than Lucy but approximately 6 years old. Two old lady beagles seem fun, don't they? Bailey is getting a trip to the vet this afternoon (I don't think she's been since living with Lee) for some shots and a nail trim.

I'm sure both of our lady beagles will enjoy our soon to be new backyard.

RC and I are thinking about paint colors and appliances. Not the color of appliances but wall color. We LOVE these and if we could afford to get the fridge, stove and dishwasher set, we would be happy for many of our days. Of course the $11,000+ price tag is the only thing holding us back but whatever. One day we'll have some extra money to maybe printed out some pictures of these appliances and hang them somewhere in our house.

Friday, July 1, 2011

Inspectyerparts...

We had the total home inspection on Friday afternoon and while I wasn't able to be there, Mr. C was and got to speak to the inspector.

The good: the foundation is great for a house this age and dry!Hooray! Not much is needed to be done that grant money doesn't cover.

The bad: we'll need a new roof in about 5 years or so and the garage needs a new roof sooner rather than later.

Overall, they weren't deal breakers but we probably need to start looking at cost and where to cut down so we can put that new roof on before winter.

We close on August 4 and our lease expires on Sept 1. That will give us plenty of time to get things fixed, walls painted and floors refinished if we do that while cleaning the apartment at our leisure.

Mr. C and I plan on starting to pack and clean this weekend. Once the children get back, they can get to work on their rooms. Exciting!! Anyone have color suggestions?

Friday, June 17, 2011

Neighborhood pictures!

For those of you who want to know what a ghetto in Lincoln looks like, here is your chance. Behold, the terrible ghetto streets of Lincoln, NE!
Looking West.


Looking East. Park is at the end of the block.

View of the 'hood from the front sidewalk

Looking across the street

Another view heading East. To the right is big grassy field.

Street behind the house.

This is a park

Houses across from the park. 




Are you ready to come for a visit? We can BBQ on our DECK.

Hooray!!

Submitted an offer this afternoon which was fairly low PLUS I asked for a seller paid home warranty and BOOM! Offer accepted no negotiations!

Totally unexpected but a wonderful surprise! I should have asked for a pony. Closing date is August 4!

Sneaky pictures of the new house.....

View from front room to dining room

Look! No water in the basement and straight walls!

Laundry room

Kitchen

Sweet Deck

Backyard

View from the deck to the garage

West side of the house

Walkway from the front of house, East side

Stairs up to the front porch

Front view

Basement on the move

Front bedroom

Grown-ups!

We're buying a house! Ok, so I haven't made the offer on this house yet but I plan on doing that this afternoon. After that first house fell through, we looked at this one and voile! We loved it.

It's just a few blocks from our current place but the neighborhood is totally different then the "ghetto" we live in now. If you have never been to Lincoln, our nice neighborhood is considered a ghetto, lots of rentals, people of color and college kids. Oh and hookers that seem to like to proposition the mister when he walks Lucy. I, however, get nice friendly hellos and requests to pet the dog. 

Below are some pictures I took of the house when I went to meet an inspector. I took this quick pictures (that is why they are blurry) as we walked through the house. No pictures of the upstairs since we didn't go up.

The house is in great shape for it's age. The floor jousts have been completely reinforced, insulation has been blown in throughout the whole house and the basement is DRY!! Hooray!

I have pictures of the neighborhood as well which I will post tonight or tomorrow. I'll let you know how the bidding goes. Hopefully we will be in a new house by August!